


Investigative Reporting

by tjemd



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjemd/pseuds/tjemd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during and after the events of season 1, episode 13, For the Girl Who Has Everything.</p>
<p>A leader needs to be decisive, set direction and move forward.  Rarely does that skillset allow for self-reflection.  </p>
<p>A journalist, on the other hand, needs to see the message beneath the story.  Can one be both?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Investigative Reporting

Lost. Adrift. Alone. Heartbroken.

Once again the sounds of the city around her were cacophonous, the artificial lights flickering at the wrong frequency, the odors of the urban streets sharp and unfamiliar. Even the synthetic fabric of her assistant garb felt rough, foreign, constricting.

Struggling not to compare the world around her to an idealized vision of everything she had wanted so hard to grow up to be, Kara wandered aimlessly through the park where she'd been kidnapped by Bizarro only the evening prior.

People's heartbeats were too fast, the cadence of their breathing, their speech patterns...off, somehow.

Eventually, realizing she would find neither solace nor answers here, reliving a failed glimmer of potential, Kara walked home. At least she still had CatCo, and her family.

\-----

Opening the door to her apartment, Kara was surprised to see three of her favorite people cleaning up in her kitchen.

Even so, her initial response was conflicted - gratitude at their thoughtfulness, frustration at not being left alone with her thoughts, dread at needing to explain herself so soon with her thoughts in a jumble and her heart so devastated.

Gratitude ultimately won out, as she greeted their offerings of pot stickers and ice cream with grace.

As Kara moved toward the coffee table where the food was laid out, Alex interrupted her. “Kara, um, there’s something…you should know.”

Kara gave Alex her full attention. “Yeah, sure, what is it?” she asked.

“Hank tried to cover for you at work while you were gone.”

Kara’s eyebrows rose. “Well, hoo, I…I’m guessing that did not go well.”

The response wasn’t promising. “Well that would be a solid guess.”

“Not by any metric,” Winn chimed in helpfully.

Returning the conversation to the present, James brandished a bottle of whiskey, grinning at the rest of the group.

Kara looked at him briefly, before pulling out the food. “That’s no fun. You know I can’t get drunk.” James’ impish grin dissolved into mock defensiveness.

“It’ll be fun, because we can,” he corrected with another smile.

“And we will,” Alex added as the four settled into dinner, Kara grabbing the pot stickers.

\-----

Still in the office, the morning’s solar flare edition settled, Cat Grant pored over Adam’s itinerary over the past week for the hundredth time. She was hoping to puzzle out the precise moment that her reconciliation with her elder son had fallen apart, agonizing over what she could have done differently.

For all that Kara had attempted to do to bring her some measure of peace, she had uncharacteristically let Cat down. "I'll fix this - I promise," she'd said.

And now he was gone. “When? Why?” she wondered aloud while looking at the letter and folded up receipts she’d kept to learn Adam’s meal preferences.

“One moment, she asked me to let her have a minute alone with my son after being kidnapped, the next he was telling me that he’d booked the early morning flight back home.” At the thought, her stomach sank.

As Cat’s mind wandered to the rest of the day, her brow furrowed into further confusion. She’d fully expected Kara to disregard her hasty tantrum from the night before, uncertain but smiling disposition intact and coffee at the ready.

From the beginning, even at at her interview, it seemed Kara understood her without prompting, proactively recognizing and accommodating her needs. And today of all days, Cat needed to be given the opportunity to vent.

Instead, Kara had shown up three hours late, amazingly underprepared, clearly having an out of body experience on par with the one between Supergirl and Bizarro. The stiff, military parade rest posture, the complaints about lack of clarity which had gone unvoiced for over two years…

Another recent conversation came to mind. “I don’t ask questions, I don’t complain…” The tirade had prompted Cat to make amends with her assistant, had given voice to Kara’s status as a fallible being with feelings.

Something didn’t sit quite correctly, but the journalist turned media royalty was unable to pinpoint exactly what made her so uneasy. So she continued to pore over the letter and receipts, knowing they were the strongest connection she had to her son for over a decade.


End file.
